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I think that the book's main message is that you DON'T have to track your daily glycemic load, or fat, or carbs, or calories! Instead, by cutting out the two key food types that are mostly to blame for blood sugar problems, diabetes, and weight gain, (i.e. sweetened drinks and starchy solids), you don't need to think about anything else. It's as close to a "non-dieting" diet that you will probably find.

That said, I would like to see more emphasis on whole foods, although I can see that the chapters which mention short cuts and convenience foods are to help ease people into this new paradigm instead of just reaching for the bread. (I shudder at the pork rinds though!)

The idea of using glycemic load in planning diets is a good one. This book fails, however, to explain how to do this well and the glycemic loads of the recipes in the book are not addressed. Dr.Thompson is correct in identifying excessive intake of sugars and starches as a problem in the North American diet. Unfortunately his discussion of the topic in not at all insightful and many of his statement show a lack of critical thought and analysis of issues. His approach to a complex topic is entirely too simplistic and leads on to think that his grasp of the topics has little depth. Having said this, however, there are many useful and healthy recipes in the book. The best use a reader can make of this book would be to find some recipes suitable to their diets.

Does a good job of explaining the differences between glycemic index and glycemic load. Problem is that all the recipes include only the basic nutritional information like calories, fat, carbs, etc, but no glycemic load numbers. If someone is to rely on limiting their glycemic load at 500 per day (author's recommendation) instead of counting calories, you think it would be obvious that they should include them.